Adu Dentamo's 14th palce finish paced the Men's squad to a 12th place team finish. |
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Goetschius Finishes Eighth At Southeast Regional Championships; Advances to NCAA Championships
Nov. 15, 2008
Complete Results
Clemmons, N.C. – With the Charlotte Cross Country annals already being chalk full of 2008 marks, sophomore Amanda Goetschius provided plenty of fireworks and listed her name among the elite runners in Charlotte history with an eighth place finish at today’s Southeast Regional Cross Country Championships hosted by Wake Forest.
Goetschius’ time of 21:04 in the 6K race is the third-fastest time at that distance in school history, just behind a pair of sub 21 minute times run by former Charlotte phenom Cassie Ficken. The Garden State native’s eighth place finish is the third-best finish in school history behind sixth place finishes by Kelly Travis and Molly Kerin, who each earned All-American honors.
Goetschius earned All-Region honors for her eighth place performance and was joined by Adu Dentamo who finished 14th to also earn All-Region honors.
“Amanda ran exactly like we talked earlier in the week about her running. She ran a tremendous race and should make it to nationals next week as long as nothing strange happens in any of the other regions," said Head Coach Brad Herbster about Goetschius' performance.
Her time of 21:04 eclipses her previous PR at the 6K distance by an impressive 28 seconds (previous fast time of 21:32 at the 2008 Pre-Nationals) and was the best finish from an Atlantic 10 female runner at the meet.
Goetschius receives an at-large bid to next weekend’s NCAA National Championship meet in Terre Haute, In. after all of the tabulations were made from all other regions. Charlotte put together a solid team performance by finishing ninth out of 33 teams. As a team, the 49ers placed all of their five scoring runners in the top 100 of the meet.
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Following Goetschius across the line for the Niners were Aja Jackson (22:07) and Keara Thomas (22:10) in 43rd and 44th place, respectively. Charlotte’s final two scoring runners came in the form of sophomore Laura McCary’s 80th place finish (22:44) and freshman Kristin Mitchell’s 84th place result (22:49).
Today’s race marked the final cross country race for Jackson who was a four-time All-Conference performer for the Niners and helped re-write the Charlotte Cross Country record books by being only the second Charlotte Cross Country runner to be a four-time All-Conference performer.
In the men’s 10K race, Dentamo's 14th place performance led the Niners squad to a 12th place team finish.
Dentamo crossed the line with a time of 31:01 and will now wait to see if he can draw an at-large bid to the National meet next weekend in Terre Haute, In. Dentamo’s 14th place performance is the best regional performance from a Charlotte men’s runner since Josh Baker finished 11th in 2002.
Following Dentamo across the line was senior Ryan Jank who wrapped up his Charlotte career in impressive fashion with a 33rd place finish (31:39).
Charlotte’s final three runners to cross the line were Chase Eckard (56th; 32:18), Jordan Rickard (86th; 33:03) and Dakota Lowery (125th, 33:48).
“Our men ran well, our top three ran pretty well, Jordan fought hard, we just needed the fifth runner to come up a little further to be where we needed to be, but overall I thought we ran pretty well,” said Herbster about his men’s squad.
Virginia Tech’s Tasmin Fleming was victorious in the women’s race, while Liberty’s Samuel Chelanga blew away the field and was the victorious by being the only runner to finish in under 30 minutes.
Virginia won the women’s team title, while perennial power William & Mary won the men’s team title.
Goetschius advances to the NCAA National Championship meet in Terre Haute with action will begin next weekend at Indiana State at approximately 12:05 p.m.
